App Annie Index: Games – Blockbuster Movies Make Blockbuster Apps

The App Annie Games Index brings you the hottest mobile gaming properties across both the iOS App Store and Google Play. To find out what’s happening with apps outside of games and the overall market, please check out our June 2013 Apps Index and Q2 2013 Market Index.

Gameloft Goes to the Movies

Iron Man 3 – The Official Game lifted Gameloft to the #2 publisher by downloads in the iOS App Store in May 2013, but it was Gameloft’s launch of Despicable Me: Minion Rush to promote Universal and Illumination’s record-setting animated family blockbuster that lifted them to #1 in June. Foreshadowing Despicable Me 2’s success at the box office, Gameloft’s endless running game Despicable Me: Minion Rush debuted as the most downloaded game in the iOS App Store in June and helped propel Gameloft to the top of the publisher download rankings.

“Our production team is always invested in delivering the best gaming experience to our fans every time,” said Baudouin Corman, VP Publishing Americas from Gameloft, to App Annie. “Despicable Me: Minion Rush was the number one most downloaded game in the iOS App Store and number five in Google Play in June, which is quite the distinction. The work of our creative teams on the gameplay, graphics and animations, combined with our close collaboration with Universal and Illumination, allowed us to capture the essence of the film and its unique humor.”

Chinese Publishers Make Splash in Download Rankings

Tiny Piece, a children’s game publisher based in China, became the #1 publisher by Google Play game downloads for the month of June, making it the first publisher based in China to lead either the iOS App Store or Google Play by downloads in 2013. Tiny Piece rode the momentum of its game Crazy Dentist, which lets users clean plaque, drill cavities and yank bad teeth. Crazy Dentist rose over 1000 spots in both the iOS App Store and Google Play download rankings for June and landed at the #5 and #3 positions, respectively. Tiny Piece wasn’t the only publisher based in China to break into the June rankings. 疯狂猜图 (Crazy Picture Guessing) by Hortor also rose over 1000 spots in the top games by iOS App Store downloads to reach the #7 position.

Supercell and GungHo Online Combine Forces

Two of the most successful revenue generating app publishers, Supercell and GungHo Online, announced a cross-promotion in Japan for their hit games Clash of Clans and Puzzle & Dragons. Supercell and GungHo Online collaborated to release exclusive in-game features that launched the week of June 24 and lasted two weeks. Both companies emphasized the benefits of collaboration and learning from each other’s area of expertise.

Gameloft was the #1 publisher by downloads in the iOS App Store for the first time in 2013, climbing one spot ahead of Electronic Arts, which has held the top spot since February. Gameloft rode the momentum of Iron Man 3 – The Official Game to the #2 ranking in May, but another movie-based game, Despicable Me: Minion Rush, helped propel them to the top this month. While Despicable Me: Minion Rush had a huge influence on Gameloft’s rise, the success of UNO & Friends also helped them cement their position in the ranking for June.

Electronic Arts made a major announcement at the gaming conference E3 in June when they told the world about their plans to adapt the popular tower defense mobile game Plants vs. Zombies for the new Xbox One console. Plants vs. Zombies, originally published by PopCap Games, will join Angry Birds and Fruit Ninja as one of the rare mobile games to make the transition to the console platform (i.e. gaming systems connected to a TV, such as the Xbox 360, PS3 or Wii).

Tiny Piece rose six spots to the #3 position on the back of their hit game Crazy Dentist, which was the #5 game in the iOS App Store by downloads in June. Tiny Piece’s other popular games like Hair Salon and Fashion Makeup Salon are targeted towards young girls and have similar gameplay mechanics that let users try different hairstyles and makeup combinations on their characters.

After starting the year in the top iOS publishers by downloads for January, February and March, Disney moved back in the top ten after a two month hiatus. Disney’s growth in June was primarily driven by the success of action role playing game Avengers Alliance and continuous running game Monsters University: Catch Archie. Monsters University: Catch Archie saw a significant increase in downloads around the same time Monsters University was released in the United States on June 21:

Monsters University opened in theaters June 21, which coincided with a spike in downloads for Monsters University: Catch Archie.

One newcomer to the top ten is CamMax, the publisher who developed the game Hi Guess the Brand. Hi Guess the Brand, a game where users identify brands based on cropped pictures of their logos, began climbing the rankings after CamMax lowered its price from $0.99 to free. CamMax was also buoyed by the success of other apps they published with a similar style of gameplay, particularly Hi Guess the Movie, Hi Guess the Place and Hi Guess the Character.

Perhaps the most unique publisher to break into the top ranking iOS App Store publishers by downloads was Metro Trains Melbourne. Metro Trains Melbourne, a public transportation company for the city of Melbourne in Australia, released a public service announcement (PSA) video on YouTube called Dumb Ways to Die that taught public safety lessons in a humorous animated video. Dumb Ways to Die amassed over 50 million views on YouTube and went on to win the Grand Trophy at the 2013 New York Festivals International Advertising Awards and seven Webby Awards, including Best Animation Film & Video and Best Public Service & Activism. Since the release of the PSA’s mobile app in early May, it has steadily climbed the ranks and propelled Metro Trains Melbourne into the top ten publishers by monthly game downloads for the iOS App Store in June.

While the popularity of Tiny Piece’s Crazy Dentist propelled them to the #3 ranking for iOS App Store publishers by downloads, they made an even bigger splash in Google Play, climbing eleven spots to become the #1 publisher by downloads in Google Play for June. Crazy Dentist and other apps like Makeup Spa, Fashion Salon, Hair Salon and Art Nail Salon helped Tiny Piece solidify their position at the top.

The success of Gameloft’s apps was not confined to the iOS App Store in June and helped them climb five spots into the #2 position in Google Play. Similar to the iOS App Store, Despicable Me drove most of their growth in downloads, but they were also driven by the crime-based role-playing game Gangstar City and Epic, a kingdom building game based on the animated movie released in late May.

LINE made it back into the top ten Google Play publishers by downloads for June after the successful launch of their new rabbit-themed match-three puzzle game, LINE Pokopang, at the end of May. LINE Pokopang’s popularity was predominantly driven by the Japanese market.

Supercell retained their position at the top of the rankings and have now become the top ranked game publisher in the iOS App Store by revenue for the fifth month in a row. Supercell’s Clash of Clans and Hay Day helped them maintain their success, but they are not resting on their laurels. On June 6th, Supercell and GungHo Online announced that they were partnering up to cross-promote their most popular titles, Clash of Clans and Puzzle & Dragons. The CEOs for both Supercell and GungHo Online said they could learn a lot from each other in their press release, “We are very honored to work with GungHo and learn from the masters of free-to-play gaming,” said Ilkka Paananen, CEO, Supercell. Kazuki Morishita, President/CEO and Executive Producer of GungHo Online Entertainment echoed Paananen’s sentiment about their company’s similar approach, “Supercell and GungHo share the same approach to game development so it seemed only natural to collaborate together.”

The iOS App Store’s #2 publisher by revenue in June, King, officially released their third app, a new match-three puzzle game called Pet Rescue Saga. After a soft launch in May, as mentioned in last month’s Games Index, King heavily promoted the app within Candy Crush Saga and Pet Rescue Saga began climbing the ranks:

Although Candy Crush Saga drove King’s revenue in June, Pet Rescue Saga is a game to keep an eye on over the next quarter.

One thing that helped Pet Rescue Saga’s launch is King’s reported process for vetting their mobile apps. Pet Rescue Saga was one of the top rated apps on their website and Facebook before King decided to translate the experience to the mobile platform. Testing games out on their own website and then Facebook’s gaming platform helped King test and refine the games before launching them in the iOS App Store.

The top publishers by revenue ranking for Google Play continued to be dominated by publishers based in Japan and South Korea. At least seven of the top ten Google Play publishers by revenue have been based in either Japan or South Korea every month in 2013. Kabam joined King as the only top ranked publishers that were not based in Asia in June.

Other news for the top ranked publishers by Google Play revenue:

GungHo Online, who has maintained their position at the top of the ranking every month in 2013, announced that their hit app Puzzle & Dragons passed 15 million users on June 8th.>

LINE launched a virtual currency system called Free Line Coins that gives users free coins in exchange for downloading certain apps. This system, similar to Tapjoy’s offerwall in Google Play, incentivizes users to engage more deeply with their platform because they can use the coins they earn to pay for new downloads and virtual goods.

Each of the top three Google Play publishers by revenue performed particularly strongly in a single country. GungHo Online and LINE are both strong revenue generators in Japan while CJ E&M is exceptionally strong in South Korea.

* Despicable Me: Minion Rush was released in June 2013, so there is no rank change vs. May 2013.

Endless running game Despicable Me: Minion Rush debuted at #1 in the iOS App Store rankings for monthly downloads in June, foreshadowing its runaway success at the box office that saw it set a record for animated films by earning $142 million during the first five days it was in theaters. Despicable Me: Minion Rush made June the third month in a row that saw a movie-based game debut in the top ten iOS App Store games by monthly downloads. Fast & Furious 6: The Game, was able to maintain its top ten position after debuting at #2 in the May 2013 Games Index, making June the second month in a row to have two movie-based game apps in the top game apps by monthly downloads for the iOS App Store.

The mobile app for Australia’s viral public service announcement, Dumb Ways to Die, climbed thirteen spots to become the third most downloaded iOS game in June. The animated online video with over 50 million views on YouTube that educates people on public safety was adapted into a time-based reaction game that encourages users to prevent their characters from dying in dumb ways. Beyond its entertainment value, Dumb Ways to Die could be making a real impact with Metro Trains Melbourne claiming that “near miss” situations at train stations have been reduced by 30% since the introduction of the campaign.

Gameloft released a new version of the popular card game UNO called UNO & Friends in late May that shot up the charts and earned the #4 ranking in June’s top iOS games by monthly downloads. The original UNO app had limited multiplayer mode options, but UNO & Friends made social the cornerstone of the user experience and built up the ecosystem and gameplay around multiplayer. In addition to new customizable avatars and mini-games, UNO & Friends includes 5 game types and a new Career Mode that allows users to participate in global tournaments.

June was the first month where two games developed by publishers based in China ranked in App Annie’s top ten iOS games by monthly downloads. Crazy Dentist and 疯狂猜图 (Crazy Picture Guessing) both rose over 1,000 spots since May to rank #5 and #7 respectively. Crazy Dentist is a kids game that lets players clean, drill and yank dirty teeth, but 疯狂猜图 (Crazy Picture Guessing) is an image identification game and has a very similar style of gameplay as the #6 game, Hi Guess the Brand. Hi Guess the Brand lowered its price from $0.99 to free at the end of May and catapulted itself into the top ten iOS apps by monthly downloads in June. Lowering the price also coincided with a significant improvement in its revenue ranking:

Hi Guess the Brand’s revenue ranking in the United States improved significantly around the same time they changed to a freemium model.

Hi Guess the Brand’s publisher, CamMax, decided to lower the barrier to entry for users by making the app free, but was able to monetize the app more efficiently with in-app purchases that give users hints or cheats when they get stuck on a level.

Clash of Clans rose four spots to #9 in the ranking on the back of strong growth in China and Japan. The app’s developer, Supercell, announced a partnership with Japanese gaming developer GungHo Online to cross promote Clash of Clans with GungHo Online’s Puzzle & Dragons on June 6th. This announcement preceded an update to the app released later in the month that implemented language support for Japanese. These two developments sparked a rise in the rankings for Clash of Clans in Japan:

Clash of Clans’ ranking in Japan rose after the announced collaboration with GungHo Online.

* Despicable Me was released in June 2013, so there is no rank change vs. May 2013.

Candy Crush Saga and Subway Surfers retained their spots at the top of the top games by downloads for Google Play in June. They were joined by five other popular game franchises that ranked in the top ten since the beginning of 2013: Temple Run 2, Pou, Fruit Ninja, Hill Climb Racing and Angry Birds.

Fast & Furious 6: The Game might have fallen six spots in the iOS App Store download ranking, but it climbed fifty-eight spots to break in at #10 in Google Play. Release dates likely played a role in this dynamic, as the game was released a week earlier in May for iOS. This extra week in the iOS App Store gave Fast & Furious 6: The Game time to accumulate enough downloads to break into the top ten for May. The Google Play app caught up in June after a particularly strong performance in the United States, Germany and Russia.

Another movie-based game had a strong showing in June with Despicable Me debuting at #5 in the monthly downloads ranking for Google Play. Although other movie apps like Iron Man 3 – The Official Game and The Hobbit: Kingdoms of Middle Earth have been featured in the top rankings for the iOS App Store in previous Index reports, Fast & Furious 6: The Game and Despicable Me are the first movie apps to break into the App Annie Index ranking for top games by monthly downloads for Google Play in 2013.

Crazy Dentist rocketed to the top of the ranks and became third most downloaded game in Google Play for June.

Clash of Clans climbed to #1 in iOS revenue generation, marking the first time Supercell’s smash hit topped the ranking since January 2013. The United States was responsible for most of Clash of Clans’ growth, but it also saw strong gains in China, Turkey and Japan. While Japan didn’t drive as much of its overall growth as the United States, China or Turkey, it’s easy to see the game’s steady climb when looking at Store Stats:

Clash of Clans rose from the 98th overall iPhone app in Japan to 11th by the end of June

Supercell was the only publisher with multiple titles in the top ten Google Play games by revenue for June. Hay Day, Supercell’s popular farming game, has been extremely consistent and held onto the #4 position for the sixth month in a row.

Electronic Arts’ The Simpsons™: Tapped Out, a game that lets you build your own Springfield, has held onto the #5 ranking since January 2013. An update to the title that added new buildings, characters, quests and waterfront property helped The Simpsons™: Tapped Out retain their position in the top ten.

Another the top ten iOS games by revenue, GREE’s Modern War, had a rollercoaster month in the rankings, but grew its overall revenue enough to climb five spots to #6. The massively multiplayer online role-playing combat game had two well defined spikes in their revenue ranking in June:

Modern War challenges groups called “factions” to accomplish goals, earn special rewards and unlock premium in-app purchases.

Relatively quiet on their Twitter and Facebook accounts before late May 2013, GREE began aggressively promoting group challenges they called World Domination that were heavily incentivized with unique rewards and virtual goods that users could purchase. The first World Domination in June began on the 7th with a challenge for groups called “factions” to conquer Madagascar. The challenge lasted until June 10th and caused their iPhone revenue ranking in the United States to climb from #26 overall on June 6th to #3 on June 7th and settled at #4 from the 8th through the 10th. Their overall ranking went back into the mid-twenties a week after the first World Domination challenge, but shot back up to #4 when they began their second World Domination challenge of the month on June 28th. This new strategy to incentivize and engage their users paid off and helped them become the 6th highest revenue generating game in iOS for the month of June.

Other interesting insights from the top games by monthly revenue for the iOS App Store in June 2013:

Six of the top ten games by iOS App Store revenue in June 2013 were developed by publishers based in Europe.

Top Eleven, a game that lets users manage soccer clubs (football clubs for our readers outside the US), saw most of its growth come from users in the United Kingdom and Germany.

Simulation games have a strong presence in the top ten with half of the apps identifying themselves in this sub-category.

* 모두의마블 (Everybody’s Marble) for Kakao was released in June 2013, so there is no rank change vs. May 2013.

The top five apps by revenue generation in Google Play maintained their position at the top of the ranking, led by GungHo Online’s Puzzle & Dragons, which has retained the #1 position every month in 2013. Puzzle & Dragons and Candy Crush Saga are both match-three puzzle games and continue to be the only games that appear in the top rankings for revenue in both the iOS App Store and Google Play. Candy Crush Saga was the only game to reach the top ten in every ranking – downloads and revenue for both the iOS App Store and Google Play. An even stronger indication of the game’s immense popularity and strong revenue generation is that it has not been below #3 in any ranking since March 2013.

Japan and South Korea continued to dominate Google Play revenue, contributing nine of the top ten games. LINE and CJ E&M were the only two publishers to have multiple games in the top games by Google Play revenue in June.

Games published for South Korea’s popular social messaging platform, Kakao, comprised over half of the top ten for the second month in a row. 모두의마블 (Everybody’s Marble) for Kakao, a Monopoly-style board game, was released on June 11 and quickly debuted in the top grossing games for Google Play. Anipang for Kakao has been a consistent performer in the top revenue rankings for Google Play, ranking in the top ten worldwide games for Google Play revenue since App Annie’s first Index for October 2012.

모두의마블 (Everybody’s Marble) for Kakao debuted as the #6 Google Play game by revenue generation in June 2013.

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Notes:

The publisher and app rankings reported in the App Annie Index are based on the download and revenue estimates available through App Annie Intelligence. Daily rank history charts and home page feature information are available to all users through App Annie Store Stats.

While the Games Index covers games, the Apps Index provides app tracking on everything but games. Note that the Top Publishers rankings in the Games Index are based solely on the publishers’ games downloads and revenue, while the Top Publishers rankings in the Apps Index are based on the publishers’ non-games downloads and revenue.

AIn the iOS App Store, an app can be categorized under a Primary Category as well as an optional Secondary Category. If an app has a Primary Category of Games and a Secondary Category of Entertainment, it is a candidate to be included in this Games Index. If the app’s Primary Category is Entertainment and its Secondary Category is Games, then it will not be included in this Games Index; it is a candidate for the Apps Index.

Note that the ranking approach used in the App Annie Index differs from that used in the iOS App Store. In the latter, app rankings for a given category will include all apps whose Primary Category or Secondary Category matches that given category. So an app can appear in the rankings for more than one category within the iOS App Store or in App Annie Store Stats rankings.

In Google Play, an app can be categorized under only one category, so there is no double-categorization.

Occasionally, a publisher may decide to shift an existing app from one category to another category. In these cases, the App Annie Index will rank that app based on its categorization in the subsequent month. Given that the App Annie Index now has a Games report and an Apps report, the only scenario where an app’s recategorization could shift it from one Index to another is if its category changes from Games to a category other than Games or vice versa.

All publishers have been grouped together under their parent publishers, where available. For example, the publisher Mobage is included under the parent publisher DeNA.

Apps with different names are ranked separately. For example, Angry Birds and Angry Birds HD are ranked as two separate apps.

App Annie Index revenue rankings are based on app store revenue earned from paid downloads and in-app purchases. They do not include revenue earned from in-app advertising.

Any non-App Annie trademarks or images used in this report are the property of their respective owners. App Annie claims no rights in those trademarks.